William’s TOP 11 RELEASES OF 2011
11 – The Civil Wars – Barton Hollow
Standout track: “Poison & Wine” gives me goosebumps every time I hear it.
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10 – Wye Oak – Civilian
Standout track: “Holy Holy”
[youtube id=rmjMFPSLXI4]09 – Wilco – The Whole Love
Also like Yo La Tengo, their years decades of experience make them fantastic live performers. Forget glitz, glam, dancers, and gimmicks. They get on stage and just rock (and their banter is pretty sweet too). I wager that those two groups are probably two of the best live acts in the US right now.
Standout track: The epic opener “Art of Almost”
08 – The Field – Looping State of Mind
Standout track: “Then It’s White”
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07 – M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
Standout track: “OK Pal”
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06 – Wild Beasts – Smother
Smother’s high mark is its beautiful meshing of the band’s two singers’ croonings into lush and sensual harmonies. And sensuality is the running theme of the album – underage listeners beware! This stuff is like a contemporary version of Barry White’s 70s sexy jams.
To read more of my praise of Wild Beasts, check out the show review I wrote of their Atlanta performance.
Standout track: “Loop the Loop”
[youtube id=H65YGBtZGXc type="a"]05 – Radiohead – The King of Limbs
“It’s too short.”
“It’s basically a Thom Yorke solo album.”
“Where are the guitars?”
“I preferred Radiohead’s early work.”
Folks were so dismissive of it that most forgot about this release a mere week later. What a shame! We should know Radiohead well enough by now to know they aren’t going to release any crap. Spend some time with The King of Limbs, and it starts to open up (like a lotus flower, wink wink). Each track was meticulously crafted – some took years to perfect (“Morning Mr. Magpie” first showed up on a webcast I watched live nine years ago!).
In addition to a knockout album, they produced what became my favorite music video of 2011 (you know it’s good when it launches as many viral parodies as it did). “Lotus Flower” puts Yorke’s quirky stylings front and center. It appears a bit random and chaotic but is actually a carefully choreographed dance. A perfect visual representation of the album as a whole.
Standout track: “Lotus Flower”
[youtube id=cfOa1a8hYP8 showinfo=0]04 – Julianna Barwick – The Magic Place
Everyone has a hard time describing what exactly Julianna Barwick does – so check out this video interview I did with her early last year after her show in Atlanta. Though her process is interesting, it is the final product’s ability to transport you to another realm that is so impressive. Definitely one to have on your iPod for those times when you are feeling stressed out or down.
Standout track: “Flown”
03 – The Antlers – Burst Apart
Like Wye Oak and Wild Beasts, I had largely ignored The Antlers earlier work. I just happened to tune in to NPR Music’s live video stream of the band playing at SXSW last March. It was astounding – everything sound pitch perfect from Peter Silberman’s falsetto to the horn players they had apparently grabbed just hours earlier to join them on stage. They played Burst Apart in its entirety and I was sold.
I’ve described this album to others as being reminiscent of Radiohead’s masterpiece OK Computer. Of course the vocals are similar, but so are many of the guitar riffs and sounds. The lyrical content and overall vibe is a bit of a downer (the opener, after all, is a pop song about hollow sex), but I say “downer” the best possible way. Dramatic, breathtaking, and executed with brilliant clarity.
Standout track: “Parentheses”
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02 – Washed Out – Within and Without
Yes, those awesome loops, beats, and samples are still in there, but the organic dimension of real humans playing real instruments takes it to the next level.
It’s hard to pick a standout track on this album. I kind of treat the entire record as one long track and will often let it repeat for hours. Calling it perfect background music sounds like a knock, but it seriously is the best stuff ever to work to, drive to, hang out with and just plain live with.
Reluctantly selected standout track: “Amor Fati”
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01 – Bon Iver – Bon Iver
When this high-anticipated album was released everyone knew that Bon Iver was more than that box we’d tried to put him in. The new record doesn’t loose an ounce of Vernon’s trademark falsetto. What it gains is lush arrangements and instrumentation (and yes, the obligatory 2011 saxophone) and lyrical poetry unlike any other I’ve heard in a long, long while.
Put this record on repeat and as you listen decide which track is best. You’ll find that each gets progressively better. And when it repeats the trend continues… on and on into infinity.
Vernon also took things to the next level by curating some of the best videos to accompany his songs. “Holocene” and “Calgary” each got their own beautiful video productions with plots (of sorts). Then he really outdid himself by getting visual artists to create ten short films, one for each track, that he released with the “deluxe” version of the record in October.
I highly recommend that you take the next forty minutes to watch the playlist below that will take you through the entire album with the stunning videos that accompany each track.
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